Are Psychedelic Drugs the Achilles’ Heel of the Establishment?

Back in 2010, I took a winter solstice themed acid trip with my lovely wife, which spawned the impetus for me finally writing my second book (which should be coming out this summer). I realized I needed to start writing said book during the trip because it was the one part of my magickal practice I had been neglecting, my magickal journal. According to some Occultists, this is the most important variable in the equation, so yeah, a pretty big oversight on my part and not something that was occurring to me at all before then. So I woke up the next day, sketched out the outline and got moving. Two and a half years later and it’s finally almost done (it only took me a year to write, finding a decent editor and getting that wrapped up has now taken me far longer, unreal). Not surprising though, every time I take psychedelic drugs other than weed, there’s an absolute deluge of otherworldly information that usually takes me quite some time to properly process and mold into action, which is a big part of the reason I don’t do them very often and increasingly focus the intent of the ritual when I do (highly recommended).

During this particular neuro-excursion I also had a fairly profound vision embed itself into my psyche seemingly out of nowhere. In it, I was at a press conference of sorts. UFO phenomenon were spiking and the world was turning to me, the preeminent Occult intermediary between the UFO’s and self described “humans”. I approached the podium calmly and had this to say:

“People of Earth. Legalize Psychedelic Drugs. NOW! We’re not asking you, we’re telling you. If you don’t, increasingly horrible shit is going to happen (and with this my whole field of vision was flooded with images of natural disasters). You know what to do. Legalize psychedelic drugs. NOW!”

This was my channeled communication to humanity. Now, was it just my imagination? It was certainly framed in the context of a music video, but also seemingly wasn’t coming from me, at least consciously. In the coming weeks, the more I thought about it, like a lot of these transmissions, the more it actually made a great deal of sense. What if rather than protesting the vast array of conflicting gripes we all have with the government, we all just started focusing our collective energy on one goal with surgical focus, the legalization of psychedelic drugs? We could start with psilocybin mushrooms because truthfully, I have no idea how LSD could rationally be legal because it’s just too easy to dose people with in acts of ontological terror. It’s a sad reality that very few people want to acknowledge and even I admittedly like the stuff ever so slightly better than ‘shrooms.

Let’s face it, the protest movement hasn’t been accomplishing a whole fuck of a lot. We’re almost more a bunch of mind controlled materialist twats than we were 50 years ago. Wealth inequality is worse. We’ve been marching around the streets chanting about political issues for how long now? The media learned years ago that all they have to do is not cover these protests and that pretty much solves the problem. If people don’t know about these things, then what did they really accomplish other than making the participants feel better about themselves? What if all of a sudden this whole movement took a complete 180 and showed up on the White House lawn demanding the religious freedom that only legalized mushrooms can provide. The establishment wouldn’t have a clue as how to deal with this and the media would jump all over it due to sheer novelty factor alone. It would force politicians to answer serious questions about why these drugs are illegal in the first place, and they don’t have the answers to these questions. They do not want this dialogue entering the beltway, trust me.

Last weekend while meditating on the most horrific week of news cycles I can remember, a voice popped into my head informing me that “we’re being forced to remember” (friend me on Facebook for weird updates like this). There was an intuitive telepathic communique that went along with this. We’re being forced to remember that we’re dreaming, that the world is made of consciousness and not matter. All the surreal horror invading our televisions and thus our psychic lives is being done to illuminate us all to that fact…to get us to wake up. It’s sink or swim at this point, we either do or we die. We’re becoming dangerous to the entire interlocking plotlines of natural reality and our superiors aren’t going to put up with our shit much longer. The day after receiving this communique, while entertaining my puppy on Saturday morning, I noticed that the History Channel was running a 60’s counterculture documentary called Hippies.

I was honestly about to change the channel as I was quite sure that I wouldn’t learn anything new about a topic I’d read so much on, but I’m glad I kept it on because I was disturbingly wrong. What I learned is that the idea that one can achieve spiritual states of consciousness through the use of hallucinogens is still about the most controversial idea imaginable. The entire thing was basically a bunch of anti-psychedelic culture propaganda. This from the network that runs U.F.O. marathons on Christmas and just made a gajillion dollars with a new Bible mini-series. You see what’s so fucked about the way we view spirituality? Hey Ancient Aliens morons, it wasn’t “actual flesh and blood extraterrestrials” it was a culture based around shamanism, and you will never, EVER, even sort of understand it unless you, gasp, actually try and get into the heads of said culture. Here’s a clue, their religion revolved around the ritual ingestion of etheogens. They had this stuff down to a science, a science we’ve since forgotten, and as my 5th dimensional self was trying to tell me, we need to remember. Now more than ever.

Don’t get me wrong, the “documentary” did in fact make a lot of good points about the failings of the hippie movement. I’ve always been a bit of a harsh critic of the 60’s scene. Psychedelic drugs are basically useless unless the users move away from the idea that they’re some sort of magical panacea. They are a door, they show you that there’s a world outside your limited reality, but it’s up to you to find out how to unlock that door and break on through to the other side. Creating ontological shock through the use of hallucinogens and not having this lead to a more consistent, focused spiritual practice has been shown to be demonstrably worthless a lot of the time. Oh, and there absolutely is such a thing as doing too much. The term “acid casualty” exists for a reason. As much as Timothy Leary wanted to believe that there was no harm in doing acid once a week, that’s obviously a load of complete shite. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again a billion times, if I would have done as much acid as they did back in the day, I would have ended up in a mental institution a long time ago. Rather than Turn on, Tune In, Drop out – let’s try Turn On, Tune In, Use what you’ve found to diligently challenge yourself spiritually and figure out how to rebuild our toxic monoculture.

I know it’s not as catchy, but you know what the most hilarious thing about the History Channel’s ridiculously biased take on the hippie movement was? According to them, the worst, and I mean absolute most dangerous thing about the whole scene was that it sometimes lead people into Occultism. Ooooh, spooky Occultism, the horribly daemonic practice where people try and make a connection with their Holy Guardian Angel. They offered zero explanation as to what was so bad about this (no one ever does), but let me fill you in: Occultism is basically westernized shamanism. Can’t have that. Makes people incredibly difficult to control. It’s a philosophy that’s in direct opposition to materialism. Instead of pretending that inner states of consciousness are completely meaningless, acting as if they are of utmost significance (friend me on Facebook to see how oddly coherent this gets). Throws a wrench in modern consumerism as we know it, and you know, that might mean that we quit blindly funneling money to the top.

You know what else it does? Makes people question the entire military apparatus. That’s really why people turn their nose up at hippies. Their movement was quite intentionally and effectively beaten down by the war machine that they opposed. Their drug of choice was made illegal. Their leaders were thrown in prison. They wanted peace, free love, and communion with the beyond rather than endless imperialistic wars. Guess what? They lost. We now have the most bloated, useless, and sophisticated war machine in world history and yet we look at them as being evil and irresponsible. Shit’s doubled in size in the last decade. See what I mean, we need shamanism now more than ever as an antidote to this karmic horror show. Legalize DMT!

The wheels are in motion. When I saw near death experiences being discussed on the Katie Couric show of all places months back, the fact that progress is being made, albeit very slowly certainly resonated within me. Even mainstream shit like Oprah started covering mushroom research. You know what else? After years of seeing psychedelic culture marginalized to the fringe pop cultural ghettos of Burning Man raves and jam band festivals which trendy arts publications consistently deride and ignore, even that’s turning around with the newly resurgent psych rock culture.

Black Mountain with Deerhunter headlining on Saturday night? Fan-fucking-tastic. If you can get there, get there kids. It’s long been known that the efficacy of a psychedelic experience has to do with set and setting and I can’t think of a better way to blast yourself into eternity than with the endless squalls of droning feedback, often interlaced with catchy hooks that this particular ritual will offer. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but in my Occult practice, I’ve found trippy music nearly as effective a sigil charging catalyst as sex (I personally like to combine the two). So, if you’re venturing directly into the time distorting expanse of music in Austin this weekend, just, you know, try to let this potent focus of trance inducing energy lead you to the next step in your spiritual development. Don’t just go and say, hey, let’s pointlessly do even more drugs next weekend. That sort of attitude will backfire on you just like it did the hippies, I promise you that. We can’t afford to fuck this up tripsters.

Thad McKraken is a psychedelic writer, musician, visual artist, filmmaker, Occultist, and pug enthusiast based out of Seattle. He is the author of the books The Galactic Dialogue: Occult Initiations and Transmissions From Outside of Time, both of which can be picked up on Amazon super cheap.

Related Articles

Some interesting food for thought here. In my opinion these drugs aren’t really a thing in and of themselves, it just puts you in touch with hyperspace. So where is hyperspace?

I think its not so much a question of where it is, because we are all in it. Its our collective psyche. We all share the same psyche! Its the collective unconscious! When we dream, its a unique experience, but the commonalities are unbelievable, and I actually have shared dreams with people at different times and shamanic journeys also.

So you can’t really really get way from it. The drugs just kind of guide you into it. But there are other types of visionaries that get kind of initiated into it, through shamanic sickness and are always pretty much with one foot in hyperspace at all times. And they have visions and share art and music and it resonates with people because the public has been in that space as well.

The more people want to deny that we are all connected the worse stuff will get. People are going to wake up eventually. its a foregone conclusion. Probably massive denial is a good a path to enlightenment as any.

Guest

Shared dreams intrigue me immensely
Sadly, I’ve never (never say never?) shared a dream…or just not aware of it.
Is this a frequent experience? Care to elaborate…?
Was it limited by physical distance? Was it through conscious intent or accidental?

http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman

I think sexual energy is a big part of it. dunno for sure. But I fell asleep in the car next to the daughter of a woman my father was dating. We were both around 16. I had the hots for her.

The other time was with a person I did sex magic with.

Calypso_1

Have you ever heard reports of astronauts having shared dreams? I ran across it years ago in a psych/space med paper but have not been able to find it again. I know they experience
serious sleep deprivation because of spaceflight. Given the known properties of geomagnetic fields to alter consciousness, I can’t help but wonder about alterations of mind states related to position in earth’s magnetic field.

http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman

I read about a tribe in Indonesia that slept communally and hand shared dreams. They would wake up, compare notes and plan their day around the dream.

Calypso_1

Do you remember the source? I like Indonesian ethnographies.

Check out ‘The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep’ by Tenzin Rinpoche if you’ve haven’t already.

http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman

I think it was John Zerzan quoting some anthropologist. I think the tribe is defunct now.

echar

In some instances they can lead away form it. I think placing emphasis on the drugs is a mistake.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

reject spectator society drugs

The Well Dressed Man

That festival in Austin looks amazing! Great town. Got to see one of Roky’s first comeback shows back around 2005.

The question of psychedelics being a vulnerability in the establishment is an interesting one. The powers that be, running a successful establishment would, I think, not hesitate for a moment to utilize such tools for their own self-actualization, as well as for other purposes less benign.

It is interesting to me that both Ken Kesey and Robert Hunter were volunteers for government research in psychedelics. This research was part of the CIA’s MK Ultra program. Could there possibly be some connection to their work in popularizing the widespread use of LSD shortly thereafter?

There’s some speculation in certain circles that the psychedelic movement in the 60s was engineered by the intelligence community to divert the youth movement from politics to mysticism. The term “Spiritual Peasant” has been used to describe the whole class of deadhead types that dropped out and tuned in. Food for thought.

Reuben_the_Red

The CIA were looking for a “truth serum” drug, which they could administer to a detainee and receive reliable answers to any questions. Instead, LSD seemed to mimic a psychotic state, in the manner which the CIA administered it. They realized this could also be useful, to have an opponent or foreign official unexpectedly go psychotic just when they were getting ready to deliver an important speech. Then, the CIA decided that if they could think of this, the commies were probably already working on it (they weren’t) and might already be five years ahead in research (they weren’t) and American officials might get dosed at any moment without warning (which would have been awesome). So, naturally, everyone working on MK-ULTRA started dosing each other, some LSD in your coworker’s morning cup of coffee perhaps, so that we could all be prepared to be dosed by the Russians without warning, so that we could all know how to expect the unexpected.

The CIA never understood that LSD had any kind of “spiritual” or “mystical” aspects, and soon lost interest when they began research with BT and other drugs that make your unplanned psychotic episode ten times more psychotic.

As it turns out, there was a lot that the CIA never understood about LSD, but mainly because their goals were entirely different than the modern day psychedelic enthusiast.

Is LSD ultimately spiritual? Really? REALLY? Can anyone say for sure? Or does it simply allow us to catch glimpses of things beyond our five senses, or at least the five that traditional Western Judeo-Christian culture is familiar with?

Or is it just that after experiences with psychedelics, or even cannabis, people who have been successfully programmed and culturally conditioned (that is, almost all of us), just can’t see the point in returning to the rat race, now that they’ve seen that there’s more to life? Is LSD inherently liberating, or is Western society inherently inhibitive, restrictive and superficial?

The Well Dressed Man

I’m familiar with the official narrative, and I don’t doubt that the CIA was looking into psychedelics for the reasons you mentioned in your thoughtful reply.

However, we’re speculating on a covert operation carried out by a powerful and secretive intelligence department. Most of the MK Ultra documents were shredded in 1973, before Congress even began investigating the operation. I think it’s highly likely that there’s much more to the story than we’ll ever know for sure. There are persistent allegations that the CIA has been involved in the illegal drug trade on a global scale. They had the means and motivation to destabilize a growing activist movement with powerful drugs. The question is: were they part of such an enterprise?

With careful use, psychedelics can be an important tool for personal growth. As recreation, these chemicals are perhaps the purest form of escapism ever invented. Bread and circuses, anyone?

Kesey, before founding the Merry Pranksters and promoting acid parties, was a volunteer test subject for MK Ultra. Robert Hunter, before becoming the silent partner in the Grateful Dead, (he wrote almost all their lyrics,) was also a volunteer test subject for MK Ultra.

We all know how the Summer of Love turned into Helter Skelter and Altamont. The youth culture that marched for civil rights and against war disintegrated in chemicals and paranoia. Did it just happen that way, or was this dissolution actively and successfully encouraged? I think it’s a valid question.

Charlie Primero

Jan Irvin of Gnosticmedia dot com is digging out the primary documentation to figure out why the CIA established hippie culture. From what I can tell it was a three-pronged attack:
1. Make people stupid with sex and drug abuse ala Brave New World.
2. Investigate their use as tactical weapons.
3. Defend against the enemy using them.
The facts about Gordon Wasson, Huxley, Esalan, Leary, et al. are slowly being uncovered.

Reuben_the_Red

Yeah. Jan Irvin is full of crap. He is connecting dots that are just totally unrelated, like seeing narratives in the constellations that are only visual groupings of stars in different parts of the universe which from our vantage point appear as constellations. Sorry, rough metaphor.

Also, read Brave New World Revisited, and you will see that Aldous Huxley renounced some of his prior speculations, well before the sixties.

The Beats started taking acid. Ginsburg, Burroughs, Kerouac, those guys. Think about it. They wanted to expand their consciousness. Think about it. Very few people would have had a reason to voluntarily drop acid in the 50’s. After a while, the media called them hippies. The beats created freaking out, and the media created hippies.

On the other hand: so what if the CIA invented hippie culture. I’m not a hippie and I’ve never wanted to be. Even if (and I strongly disagree with the suggestion) the CIA had anything to do with intentionally starting a spiritual movement to distract children who probably wouldn’t have been political anyway–so what?! It obviously didn’t turn out the way they wanted it. It didn’t turn out the way Ginsburg wanted it, it didn’t turn out the way Nixon wanted it, it didn’t turn out the way Allen Dulles wanted it, it didn’t turn out the way Kesey wanted it, it didn’t turn out the way Huxley wanted it; no one ever had control over how any of this has turned out.

For example, we are having this conversation via internet, a technology invented by the military, for whatever purposes, they couldn’t have forseen this conversation we are having right now. I don’t care that the military invented the internet, it doesn’t stop me from using it to my own advantage, in pursuit of my own purposes. And you can too.

Reuben_the_Red

I’m sorry, but I feel like this attempt to speculate as to unknowable diabolical behavior seems silly to me. Historically speaking, my version of the “official narrative” IS the covert operation carried out by a powerful and secretive intelligence operation. Nevermind what other weird and ridiculous stuff they were doing back then– what are they doing now?!

Of course I’m aware of the history of Ken Kesey, he is a perfect example of someone who realized there was more positive social potential in these deconditioning chemical agents, than the CIA realized.

Anyone who watches a shitty network TV documentary knows that the official story is that “the Summer of Love turned into Helter Skelter and Altamont” but that’s just how it happened in TIME magazine.

Remember, psychedelics were legal when the 60’s started. LEGAL. Let’s talk about social engineering. Let’s talk about the overt social engineering of criminalizing psychedelics so that by the time everyone showed up for the Summer of Love (’67, not ’69!!!) it was easier for all of those midwest runaways to get speed than acid. And they did. “Acid burnouts” were usually actually speed burnouts, when all of the media-flamed runaways got to SF and couldn’t buy acid anymore.

The youth culture that marched for civil rights and against war was inspired by weed and by acid. Would/could those subversive social movements have grown so popular, without these catalysts? What if the drugs had remained in the hands of the beats and the poets, as had been the case? Of course we may still have had a Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, but someone’s first joint or first dose might have been their first shot at thinking outside the box.

So why would anyone suggest that the government that banned these things was intentionally and diabolically allowing the youth of America to get high? It’s not like we need more escapism, there is already beer and liquor.

The official narrative is that the social revolution of the sixties fell on its face at Altamont. THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK.

Actually, they just started arresting everyone and putting them in jail and endowing political activists with criminal records. Capitalism and authoritarnianism and fundamentalism won that battle over American society with money and messaging, i.e. when Ronald Reagan campaigned for California governor–and won–by subverting true freedom and higher education, and by appealing to the fears and paranoias of white, suburban middle-class voters. Then he took the same approach nationwide, harnessing and fomenting the paranoid social backlash.

But the cracks that formed in those days widened significantly, and since then, they have never closed… It’s hard to comprehend how much we owe today to those initial social revolutionaries, many of whom have gone on to quietly live out successful lives of sustainability and minimalism and spirituality and cooperation, separate and apart from the Western consumer culture which revolves around greed and power and punishments.

The Well Dressed Man

************
“Historically speaking, my version of the “official narrative” IS the covert operation carried out by a powerful and secretive intelligence operation. ”

********
How can we possibly establish the facts with any degree of certainty? I’ve been trying to be very clear in framing my questions as speculation. Do you dislike questions?

I’m not going to spend much time taking apart the rest of your reply beyond pointing out that the Civil Rights Movement, which began in the mid 1950s, really hit its stride in the early 60s, before most Americans had heard of psychedelics. Acid had no legal status, it was too much of a novelty. Academics, spies, and doctors were playing with it. It wasn’t widely used until several years later when cats like Kesey and Leary began promoting it.

Really, I think we have a difference of opinion here. I grew up on the West Coast in the aftermath of the time we’re discussing. Psychedelics are still very much part of the culture here. Through extensive personal experience and observation, I became deeply ambivalent about their net benefit to society.

Burning man is the simplest example for my critique. You get all that freak-scene, smart, inspired, countercultural passion, and bottle it up all year, saving and building for the big party. You go out to the middle of the desert and have the most amazing party the world’s ever seen. It’s awesome. And then you go back to your job and hunker down for another year, waiting. It’s an escapist safety valve that serves to maintain the status quo.

Trips, dreams, visions, and adventures are an important part of who we are. Sadly, too many of us left those dreams on the other side. That’s what I think about when I look back at my parent’s generation, and I’m afraid that’s how my generation will be remembered, if at all.

Reuben_the_Red

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

The Well Dressed Man

“This is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted.”

http://www.macewan.org macewan

Have either one of you had a chance to read Thomas Campbell’s My Big T.O.E.?

The Well Dressed Man

I have not. Looks like quite a read. I’m just beginning to seriously study physics. Once I get through classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics, I’ll be interested in at least having a good peek at astrophysics and quantum mechanics. What does Campbell have to say about psychedelics and society?

Rob Lai

A point on the main, political, argument here. Cultures and religions that regularly used hallucinogens as regular parts of their rituals often did so to strengthen the “establishment”. The settings of and assumptions about these experiences were heavily controlled by the professionally religious (“shaman” is a bit inaccurate, but it’s the commonly accepted term) and bound in ritual. They were almost never used to enhance the “individual”, but to strengthen the bond to the group, both in overt and subtle ways. Remember, the individual as we in the West (another bad term, but I don’t have a better one) understand it, is a reasonably new concept, especially to the extremes we’ve taken it. This whole idea that Pastoralists and Horticulturalists, commonly called “Tribal” cultures, lived ‘free and wild’ is a bit romanticized. They are bound by intricate and strict rules about life-roles and behavior. Stricter and more adhered to than any of the rules of the modular, industrial, agricultural societies most of us grew up in. It’s really only here (and in the societies in our direct line of descent) that hallucinating is considered ‘rebellious’ and individualistic. Which may very well be the point the author is trying to make, because other than ‘hippies were nice guys, but had it wrong’, I’m going to admit I had a little trouble following his main thesis.

The Well Dressed Man

Well said.

Hadrian999

people have been saying that for decades, the establishment still runs things.

Sir Legendhead

It’s because you haven’t smoked enough weed yet. Come on maaan get your head in the game.

drokhole

Absolutely. George Carlin put it well when he called them “values changing drugs”:

And Alan Watts covered the opposition to/suppression of them pretty comprehensively in his essay “Psychedelics and Religious Experience” (http://deoxy.org/w_psyrel.htm ):

Opposition to Psychedelic Drugs

“Resistance to allowing use of psychedelic drugs originates in both religious and secular values.
…
Such a vision of the universe clashes with the idea of a monarchical God, with the concept of the separate ego, and even with the secular, atheist/agnostic mentality, which derives its common sense from the mythology of nineteenth-century scientist. According to this view, the universe is a mindless mechanism and man a sort of accidental microorganism infesting a minute globular rock that revolves about an unimportant star on the outer fringe of one of the minor galaxies. This “put-down” theory of man is extremely common among such quasi scientists as sociologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists, most of whom are still thinking of the world in terms of Newtonian mechanics, and have never really caught up with the ideas of Einstein and Bohr, Oppenheimer and Schrodinger. Thus to the ordinary institutional-type psychiatrist, any patient who gives the least hint of mystical or religious experience is automatically diagnosed as deranged. From the standpoint of the mechanistic religion, he is a heretic and is given electroshock therapy as an up-to-date form of thumbscrew and rack. And, incidentally, it is just this kind of quasi scientist who, as consultant to government and law-enforcement agencies, dictates official policies on the use of psychedelic chemicals.

Inability to accept the mystic experience is more than an intellectual handicap. Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination. For in a civilization equipped with immense technological power, the sense of alienation between man and nature leads to the use of technology in a hostile spirit—to the “conquest” of nature instead of intelligent co-operation with nature. The result is that we are eroding and destroying our environment, spreading Los Angelization instead of civilization. This is the major threat overhanging Western, technological culture, and no amount of reasoning or doom-preaching seems to help.
…The content of the mystical experience is thus inconsistent with both the religious and secular concepts of traditional Western thought. Moreover, mystical experiences often result in attitudes that threaten the authority not only of established churches, but also of secular society. Unafraid of death and deficient in worldly ambition, those who have undergone mystical experiences are impervious to threats and promises. Moreover, their sense of the relativity of good and evil arouses the suspicion that they lack both conscience and respect for law. Use of psychedelics in the United States by a literate bourgeoisie means that an important segment of the population is indifferent to society’s traditional rewards and sanctions.”

Rob Lai

The whole “psychedelics as enlightenment” always just sounded like another way for the kids cool enough to find drugs to lord it over those of us who aren’t. I’m an introvert with boring friends and no “hook-up”. But then, I don’t feel any particular need for spirituality or an “existential lack” or the like. I am not, never have been, “seeking something I cannot name”, so maybe I just don’t have a higher side to wake up, so no loss there.

InAwe

Of course there are ‘cool’ kids. You’re right to discard them. Just a personal opinion…but if they have a feeling of superiority, they probably missed the point. Rather than bring something to the table, they are diluting and polluting the power and brilliance of the idea/concept as a tool. You get that with weed smokers too. You get that with absolutely everything.

As an introvert you probably spend a lot of time in your mind? And if you can recognize you have dull friends, you’re probably more enthralled by your own mind? Why not be curious to explore that further.

If the words ‘spiritual enlightenment’ make you feel instantly uneasy (…why wouldn’t you given what beauuutiful things organized religion has done in the name of ‘spiritual’ and ‘enlightenment’). Maybe approaching psychedelics form plain curiosity and science might be more interesting for you? For me, quantum theory just made perfect sense…creates a pathway for exploring our consciousness.

Try it for yourself, (with the right setting, dose, intension). How can you form an opinion on something you haven’t tried?

It’s an entirely experiential thing. Just reading and talking about it is not the same experiencing it…how could it be? Language can be rather limiting since our society and therefore our language doesn’t cater for such experiences.

Eh. Just my two cents.

Rob Lai

I think the both of you bring up a good point… my objections, when looked at from an outside perspective (and as InAwe said, I spend a lot of time in my own head), have nothing to do with the drugs, and everything to do with People. As usual.

The Well Dressed Man : ‘Local Groupthink’ Indeed! Hits the nail right on the head. I think that’s what I was trying to get at. Well worded. You also got at my basic point. As long as these things are prohibited, they are pretty much limited to people with certain kinds of social connections.

InAwe : A good point. Did try DMT the once back in college. Which is far too small a sample group to judge by. At a party, naturally, which I always found awkward (it took me a long time to stop trying to NOT be an introvert). Spent the entire time watching a dancing pirate flag to distract me from the pretentious horsecrap my fellow trippers were spouting. The only revelation I took away from it is that “small-town weed snobs” (not a dig on all weed smokers, but you know who I’m talking about) bore me worse than my current friends (as a point: my friends don’t bore me, they share a lot of my interests, not in this, but a lot of other things, but they’re pretty square suburban types who would likely bore the Disinfo crowd). I’ve experimented some since with sensory dep, and would love to see what DMT would produce without the outside stimuli.

The Well Dressed Man

Chemicals can sometimes be a tool for positive change. But, since these substances are contraband, beyond the questions of dosage and purity, you’re pretty much forced to experiment with them on other people’s terms. Purveyors of psychedelics typically have a strong idealistic motivation. While they really mean well, frequently there’s an intrinsic agenda to persuade the newcomer to experience the trip as part of the local groupthink. Can be a really bad scene for introverts.

http://iuwus.deviantart.com/ Threedinium

LSD is the only thing I’ve ever known to strip away my lifelong physical anxiety symptoms in a single blow. I’m fairly sure one or two more intense directed trips could go a long way towards eliminating it almost completely. After my first mushroom trip a while ago I realised how much weird bullshit you can end up believing in on LSD. I’m much more interested in it’s medical potential now.

http://twitter.com/JamesdeWinste James de Winste

There are legal psychedelic drugs. One is called a flotation tank, the other an infared sauna.

Rob Lai

I’ve tried the tank. But I’ll have to look up the sauna… thanks…

http://www.macewan.org macewan

Rogan rants in his guys guy chest thumping/bumping styled poetry about the benefits of isolation tanks. Thanks to your comment I have finally looked up providers of said hardware & plan to visit one my next business trip.

Thanks for the reminder. 😉

HanShan Tempel

Man, it’s so awesomely synchronous to read this right now since I’m heading to Austin Psych Fest this evening!

“So, if
you’re venturing directly into the time distorting expanse of music in
Austin this weekend, just, you know, try to let this potent focus of
trance inducing energy lead you to the next step in your spiritual
development.”
Will do!

Great writing as always, Thad.

Mika Mt

very interesting article

Matt Sowersbry

I’m not sure about shared dreams but one morning I had made a cup of tea and was busy stirring it and then realized that I was actually standing at a bus-stop somewhere near bloody Epping for christsake and a girl across the road was watching me mime making a cup of tea in mid-air.
It took me like 5 hours to find my way home. I was just walking around Epping for hours and hours. Also someone at the rave had stolen my phone. Then I got kicked out of a butcher shop for accidentally trying to pick up a raw whole chicken TWICE because I thought it was a packet of Smarties. Both times. Same chicken.